Category: Mobile

One of the defining traits of Audi’s S, R, and RS cars is the brand’s trademark Quattro all-wheel-drive system. German tuner MTM ignored that and designed a rear-drive R8. According to them, the R8 GT3-2 offers “a complete new driving experience” and is “a perfect and exceptional supercar.” MTM claims it’s building the only street-legal two-wheel-drive R8, although Audi itself beat them to the rear-drive punch with the track-only R8 GT3.

As with the MTM-fettled R8 we drove a few years ago, MTM adds a supercharger to the R8 GT3-2’s 4.2-liter V-8 engine. Along with a low-restriction, high-noise exhaust, the kit offers a claimed 560 hp and 427 lb-ft of torque.

So equipped, MTM claims the car will hit 196 mph and finish the 0-to-62-mph sprint in 3.9 seconds. We’re guessing acceleration times are limited by having just two driven wheels; the 525-hp R8 5.2 FSI gets to 60 in 3.5 seconds, thanks in part to its Quattro all-wheel drive.

MTM also bolts on an adjustable suspension kit, forged 20-inch wheels wearing Dunlop Sport Maxx tires, and 15-inch brake discs. Visuals are amped up with a carbon-fiber front splitter, side skirts, and rear spoiler.

If you feel you have too much traction and not enough slip angle, MTM can either sell you a completed GT3-2 or perform the transformation on your current R8. There’s no price available yet, but the supercharger kit alone costs €29,900—about $40k in our money.

Related posts:

1. 2008 MTM Audi R8 Supercharged – First Drive Review
2. 2009 MTM Audi S3 Sportback – Specialty File
3. Audi R8 GT3 – Car News

Our appreciation for roundel-badged vehicles extends to legacy BMWs, so we’re happy to learn that the German automaker is increasing its support for classic vehicles.

The biggest news is that the BMW Classic Center has opened its doors to the public. Heretofore the division only worked on restoring and maintaining historic vehicles for the company’s internal collections. The new Historic Workshop will accept commissions from outside customers who want their Bimmer or Beemer rebuilt.

Current projects in the workshop include a 1970s-era BMW 3.0 CSi. Though that particular model was only ever offered with a manual transmission, the car’s current owner wants an automatic swapped in instead—we cry heresy. Regardless, the Historic Workshop has access to company documents and tools that will make the swap possible. They’re also restoring an M1 which was left outside in Malaysia for so long that it was filled with termite nests.

If you want to do the resto work yourself, BMW Classic Center offers a growing list of original (i.e. from BMW) parts, starting with those for the R 24 motorcycle that entered production just after World War II, up through the 1994-model-year 7-series. Also available are reconditioned engines with a two-year warranty: send BMW your old, broken mill and they’ll send back a replacement that’s “as good as a new engine.” The parts catalogue is online at www.bmw-classic.com.

And if they don’t have the part you need, BMW Classic Center can make it. The Historic Workshop has access to original technical drawings, so if the tooling for certain parts has been lost or destroyed, they can recreate parts from scratch. To prevent that from happening, though, the Classic Center takes custody of as much tooling and production equipment as possible after production of a car or bike is discontinued.

Of course, not every BMW fan lives in Germany. There’s now a BMW Classic Center in Switzerland and the company will soon open shop in the U.S.

If you race a classic BMW, you’re in luck too. BMW Classic has launched a motorsports division that caters to providing parts and restoration help for owners who race their cars. Some of those are road cars converted to track duty, while others are historical BMW racers still seeing competitive action. To demonstrate its prowess, the motorsports group will rebuild a 1964 Mini Cooper S Mark 1 and a 1970s-era BMW 1602 Touring for racing duty.

Related posts:

1. BMW Adds Real-Time Fuel Prices, Weather, and Stock Quotes to BMW Search
2. 2012 BMW 3-series Adds a Turbo Four, Hybrid, and Hatchback to the Range – Car News
3. Old Cars in Frankfurt: Big BMW Bloodlines

Ford’s ultimate Focus, the 345-hp RS500, was already sold out when Ford pulled the blanket at the Leipzig auto show in Germany today. The “home market”—Ford developed and is building the car in Germany—gets 55 of the 500-unit run, virtually all of which have long been earmarked by dealers and can be expected to end up in showrooms or collections. It’s a shame, because this powerful Focus is actually a very fast and capable long-distance road car and not a modern-day interpretation of the crude Dodge Omni GLHS that you might have expected.

Ford Europe has listened to the prayers of its followers and has endorsed a power kit by the British tuner Mountune. The MP350 package will bring your regular, 301-hp Focus RS up to the RS500’s 345 hp—without voiding the warranty. It will first be sold in the U.K. and then be rolled out on the Continent. If Ford Europe is really listening, what about us? Hey, we’d even be happy with 301 hp.

Related posts:

1. 2011 Ford Focus RS500 – Car News
2. Ford Teases High-Performance Focus RS500
3. The Future is Focus-ed: Ford to Bring 10 Focus Variants to U.S. Over Next Three Years

Mobile searching just got better. Google recently announced Universal Search Suggestions in mobile searches. While you’re typing the search, suggestions are shown with a snippet of information on the topic. Want to know the weather? As you type, the request the information is shown as a suggestion. This also works with the Quick Search Box widget in Android so you can get that fast access to information without leaving your home screens.

Google just keeps making mobile searches better, with more features than anyone else in the game. Location-based searches, starred search results, and mobile-optimized results all make our beloved Android that much better, eh? [Google]

Research In Motion today agreed to purchase QNX Software Systems from Harman International for an undisclosed amount. The move signals RIM’s further intent to add its products to vehicles, and complements last May’s purchase of Dash Navigation, a maker of Internet-connected, in-car GPS devices.

QNX Software Systems creates middleware and real-time operating systems for embedded devices such as in-vehicle entertainment systems, but don’t count on RIM to limit its efforts. An interesting connected car project on QNX’s web site expands possibilities far beyond simple audio or video playback. Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO, at RIM hinted at looking beyond the basics with this comment from the news release. “[W]e look forward to ongoing collaboration between Harman, QNX and RIM to further integrate and enhance the user experience between smartphones and in-vehicle audio and infotainment systems.”

Few major mobile platforms have gained a presence in automobiles, but RIM appears poised to try. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s SYNC is making inroads into the nascent market; the system, which is in more than 2 million vehicles, recently added Wi-Fi support. With an increasing number of consumers craving real-time information on the go, connected car systems are the next frontier. And given RIM’s core competency of connecting people with information, the QNX buy, as well as the prior Dash purchase, are making clear the path down which RIM plans to travel.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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Images courtesy of Foundry27

Nokia’s geolocation buying spree goes on. This time, it’s buying Cambridge, Mass.-based MetaCarta, whose technology interrogates documents for geographical information.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) isn’t confirming the price or terms in its very brief announcement, which confirms: “MetaCarta’s technology will be used in the area of local search in Location and other services.” MetaCarta previously attracted funding from DARPA and the CIA’s In-Q-Tel investment arm, according to previous reports.

MetaCarta’s products extract geographic information from content, and therefore allow content to be searched using geographic terms and for the data to be used in other applications. The company says it makes information “location-aware”.

This fits right in with Nokia’s “SoLo” (social location) vision, which it wants to delivery through Ovi Maps. The handset maker has been talking about it for the last couple of years. If it ever executes, it could find itself with an advantage in the area.

In the last few years, Nokia has acquired mapping firm Gate5, Berlin’s Bit-side map provider Navteq and travel social network Dopplr, as well as social address book firm Cellity and browser maker Novarra.

GM’s mechanically identical full-size-truck twins, the Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD, both start at $28,960 for 2011. That’s an increase for the improved trucks of just $500 over 2010 prices.

The entry price is for regular-cab, rear-wheel-drive models with a gasoline V-8 engine. Choosing GM’s powerful and torquey Duramax diesel engine and Allison six-speed automatic transmission adds $8395 to the price of either truck.

For the first time, the chrome-laden Denali trim level (pictured above) will be offered on the Sierra HD. Available only in 2500HD, crew-cab, four-wheel-drive configuration, the Sierra Denali HD starts at $46,860. Denali-specific trim includes a four-bar chrome grille, chrome door handles, chrome accents, and 18- or 19-inch polished aluminum wheels.

Production of the Silverado HD and Sierra HD begins next month, with the trucks scheduled to reach dealerships by June.

Related posts:

1. GMC Sierra HD vs. Chevy Silverado HD: What’s the difference? Depends on What’s Next to It
2. 2011 GMC Sierra HD Introduced, Denali HD Trim Added
3. 2011 Buick Regal Pricing Announced

Robert Buderi wrote:

If you’re a fan of the TV show Supernatural, as the writer of this essay is, then at this point you might think a demon has taken possession of my colleague Wade Roush, who of course writes his World Wide Wade column every (or almost every) Friday.

That would not be correct. But a demon of sorts took over me, which led to me taking over this column. I got a little fed up (in a nice way) with all the ‘iPad this’ and ‘iPad that’ I’d been hearing. Wade got up at 5:00 am last Saturday to buy one, he polled readers about it, he carried it all over the office. If you went to an editorial meeting around here, there was Wade trying (I say trying) to take notes on his ‘Pad. If you looked in his office, there was Wade, head craned down (read on about that), sitting in a guest chair typing notes on his iPad, his once busy laptop perched forlornly on his desk.

So last night as I was leaving work and Wade was just beginning today’s column, I said, “Why don’t you bag your column and I’ll write it for you, and I’ll write the truth about the iPad, which is that it will NEVER be a breakthrough success.”

To which Wade responded, “It sold half a million units already!” To which I said, “They marketed the hell out of it.” At which point Wade turned over his iPad to me for the night and I set out to do a quick and dirty, impressionistic, bullet-point review.

And you know what? I stand by my first impression. While it has all sorts of cool features, is beautifully designed, and all that, the iPad will never become anything close to the breakthrough success the iPod or the iPhone have been. That’s because:

1) The iPad is a coffee table book waiting to happen. Very nice, very fun to look through and play with. But it…

2) Doesn’t solve a core problem or address a core need.

3) It’s just plain a size that, while nice, is non-essential (it doesn’t work as a desktop device, it’s too small to be your home TV, and it’s far too big to be truly portable).

4) Typing, including the ergonomics of typing, is disastrous on the iPad. It adds a zillion extra characters if you merely rest your fingers on the screen the way you would rest them on a physical keypad, and so you are forced to look at the screen with each letter you type. If you are a touch typist, you are POL (Pad Outta Luck). And you will assuredly get a stiff neck to boot (remember that image of Wade bent over his iPad?).

5) There’s something else wrong with the iPad, which many have noted before me, and that’s Apple’s notorious refusal to allow Flash to run on its mobile devices. The iPad’s whole point is to be a fun, recreational device. But when I went to my beloved KenKen puzzles at NYTimes.com, they didn’t load. Just as I was imagining having an iPad hanging out in my living room so I could at least pick it up and read the paper and do some puzzles when I had a moment of leisure…that reality hit me hard.

6) On a somewhat related point, others have complained about the lack of a camera. You gotta be kidding me. Who would want to hold up something the size of a clipboard to take a picture? What it really needs is video conferencing, another shortcoming, at least at the moment.

So that’s my quick take. Yes, some things are fantastic and seem truly perfect for the iPad’s size and shape—like Autodesk’s Sketchpad, or some game apps, or browsing through a book like The Elements. And yes, Apple will undoubtedly sell a good number of iPads.

But unlike the iPod, which let you carry music to the gym, on the subway, or anywhere you wanted to go, or the iPhone, which opened a world of apps in a form factor that works seamlessly with our modern lifestyle, the iPad is a novelty, really. And the vast, vast majority of people just aren’t going to want to lug it around, a truth that will ultimately discourage many people from buying it (especially for $499 or more), despite Apple’s marketing blitz. In the end, the iPad will look great on a coffee table, or maybe sitting by your bed, waiting for its 20 minutes each night.

So I’m gladly (well, mostly gladly) giving Wade’s iPad—and his column (extremely gladly)—back to him.

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Wade Roush wrote:

Cambridge, MA-based Metacarta, whose software searches digital text for references to place names and addresses, has been acquired by Nokia, the Espoo, Finland-based mobile hardware giant announced today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and it’s not yet clear how Nokia will integrate Metacarta’s technology into its mobile offerings, which include navigation services through the Ovi Maps application. Nokia’s terse press release said only that the 30-person startup’s technology will be “used in the area of local search in location and other service.”

The iPhone has already been credited with helping to lift the mobile ad space out of obscurity, and Apple’s new ad platform will further capture the attention of marketers and ad-agency creatives, helping to drive new revenues.

But iAd’s impact will be limited for two reasons. The first is the lack of a standard metric for mobile advertising, which continues to hold back online ad spending in general. Until Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) can solve that problem—outside app analytics companies like Flurry are certainly trying—mobile buys will continue to be modest and mostly experimental.

To put it in perspective, eMarketer says marketers spent just $416 million on mobile ads in 2009—compared to the $22.7 billion spent across the web last year, according to the latest numbers from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The other constraint about iAd is that it’s mostly a self-interested solution. It’s app-centric, and the majority of the mobile universe doesn’t use an iPhone and that won’t change anytime soon.

In his presentation earlier today, Jobs expressed a sentiment that even many mobile ad evangelists concede as well: “We think most of the mobile advertising really sucks. We thought we might be able to make some contributions.”

But the main contribution Jobs is talking about involves making the iPhone app experience a little less vexing. As Apple explains in its release, when users click on mobile ads, they’re almost always taken out of their app to a web browser, which loads the advertiser’s site. Most of the time, that process completely cuts users off from what they were originally doing in the app. So, iAd’s solution is to offer advertisers a full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and letting users return to their app anytime they choose.

This actually does solve some important issues for marketers and agencies. For one thing, users might be more apt to click on an ad if it looks better and doesn’t force them to start over when they return to their app. Even more than PC-based online ads, mobile advertising has been particularly plagued by a stunning lack of creativity. A wider, and more interactive, canvas, could result in some more spending.

But the overarching problem is that no one can agree on what is the most important mobile ad metric to track, and the systems for measuring from analytics companies are still considered inadequate. There are so many companies offering competing metrics, no one can say which is the standard. To put it more simply, the TV ad market works because everyone agrees on the value of a Nielsen ratings point. That’s missing in online advertising, and is even more elusive with mobile.

Related

• The Seven Major New Features For The iPhone: Multi-tasking, iAd And More
• Google: Apple’s Quattro Buy Is Proof Of A ‘Competitive’ Mobile Ad Market

During today’s iPhone OS 4 event, Apple announced that it plans to bring iBooks and the iBookstore to the iPhone once the new OS becomes available later this year. It is not clear, however, why Apple plans to wait this long to bring its e-reader software and e-book store to the iPhone. After all, being able to sync books between the two devices would put Apple’s feature set close to being on par with Amazon’s Kindle platform.

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Just like the Kindle apps, iBooks will be able to sync pages and bookmarks between the iPad and the iPhone versions. Judging from what we have seen so far, iBooks on the iPhone basically looks like an exact copy of the iPad version – with a few concessions to the smaller screen.

Isn’t iBooks Just Another App?

At its core, the iBooks application is nothing else but just another iPhone app. As far as we can see, iBooks doesn’t rely on any special abilities that are only available in the iPhone OS 3.2 on the iPad or the newly announced iPhone OS 4. Given that Apple is tying iBooks so closely to the next OS release, chances are that iBooks for the iPhone won’t work on the original iPhone and older iPod touch models and won’t be available as a stand-alone download.

Maybe the team behind iBooks was just to preoccupied with developing the iPad app in time to also focus on the iPhone app. Maybe Apple doesn’t want to blur the lines between the iPad as an e-book reader and the iPhone. None of this, however, really explains why Apple plans to wait until the release of the iPhone OS 4 to launch iBooks for the iPhone and forgo all the possible e-book sales it could get from iPhone users.

One of Amazon’s big advantages over iBooks and the iBookstore (besides the fact that some people simply prefer the Kindle app and that Amazon has a larger book selection), is that users can easily read and sync their Kindle books between the iPhone, iPad, Kindle and desktop. There is also a good chance that Barnes & Noble will soon release an iPad version of its iPhone e-reader. With this, the company’s e-books will then be available on the B&N Nook, a number of third-party e-readers, the iPhone and the iPad.

By not releasing iBooks for the iPhone for another few months, Apple will probably lose quite a few customers to Amazon. After all, Apple has already sold close to 80 million iPhone OS devices and less than 1 million iPads.

Image credit: gdgt

Discuss

The off-road-ready Ford F-150 SVT Raptor has been on sale now for several months but many enthusiasts have been waiting to get their hands on the optional 411-hp, 434-lb-ft 6.2-liter V-8 Raptor. Well, as of today, the wait is over and if you weren’t among the nearly 3000 customers who pre-ordered their 6.2-liter Raptors, you can now find them on dealer lots. And with only a $3000 premium on top of the $38,995 base price, we can’t imagine too many people will skip over the much-needed horsepower.

Ford Racing Performance Parts also took the opportunity to remind us of its line of Raptor-specific accessories, including the sweet TireGate (below) that holds a full-size spare in the same fashion as your favorite Trophy Truck. There also are some less-useful but equally showy items available, like colored engine valve covers. Serious off-roaders planning to put their trucks to the test might want to consider the upgraded skid plate, light bar, or tow kit. Check out FordRacingParts.com for more info.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor 6.2 and Raptor XT – Auto Shows
2. 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor – Auto Shows
3. 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor – First Drive Review

After announcing the sale of 450,000 iPads since Saturday, Apple today unveiled its iPhone OS 4.0, the next evolution in the company’s mobile strategy. Although several of the new features, due for release this summer, were on my list of expectations two days ago, the bulk of them are indeed evolutionary — on the surface. But the implementation approach and polish of these new features are actually revolutionary because they don’t merely re-purpose the PC implementations of each task but are instead redesigned for mobile use. Here’s a rundown of what iPhone OS 4.0 devices will be capable of:

Multitasking — Apple has added seven APIs for developers to use in support of multitasking. Audio applications, VoIP programs and location-based services can all run in the background. And if a task isn’t complete when closing an app — say a photo upload — the task will continue until completion. Perhaps most clever is Apple’s re-use of the dock concept from OS X. Double-tapping the home button causes a dock-like tray to rise up on the screen so users can switch to another application. Multitasking and fast app switching will only be available for iPhone 3GS, third-generation iPad Touch, and iPad. “The hardware just can’t do it,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs when referring to the first- and second-generation devices in his presentation today to developers and media in Cupertino, Calif.

Unified Inbox — The new inbox unifies multiple mail accounts into a single view, making it easier to navigate email. Attachments won’t be limited to QuickView either — you can open mail items in supported third-party applications sold in the iTunes App Store. So a Microsoft Word document, for example, could be instantly opened in a word processing program for editing purposes. Apple also lifted the limitation of one Microsoft Exchange account. That helps both enterprise and advanced power users with a hosted Exchange account or multiple Google accounts. Speaking of Google, Apple adds a useful Google-like function with support for mail grouping by conversation.

iBooks — Apple’s new e-book platform debuted with the iPad, but will move to iPhone and iPod Touch devices with this update. Taking a cue from Amazon, iBooks will synchronize your place in a book when switching from one mobile Apple device to another.

Game Center — Now that there are 50,000 game titles for the iPhone platform, Apple is going to leverage them for a social gaming experience. Think Microsoft Xbox Live with achievements, multiplayer matchmaking and real-time leader boards. This feature was described as a “preview” in OS 4 that will be fully available later this year, although Apple wasn’t more specific on the time frame.

iAds — In another page from the Google playbook, Apple is entering the mobile advertising business. This makes sense, given the company’s purchase of Quattro in January. Developers using the interactive iAd platform –which leverages HTML5 — in their apps, will earn 60% of the revenue, with the rest going to Cupertino. Liz Gannes offers more perspective on Apple’s iAds from her on-site vantage point.

Folders and Wallpapers — In a very desktop-like paradigm, the new iPhone OS adds support for user-created folders and custom wallpapers. What’s the benefit of drag-and-drop folders? More apps. Instead of a limit of 180, folders can hold apps, raising the limit to 2,160 installable applications. Given how many apps we’re all installing — not to mention how much media we tote — it’s a safe bet that this summer will bring an iPhone with 64 GB of storage, just like the highest priced iPad offers today.

Apple expects to release the new operating system to iPhone 3GS and third generation iPod Touches this summer, while the release for the iPad follows in the fall. The original iPhone, iPhone 3G and first two iPod Touch iterations will be able to use some of the features, but not all. The new features should quell many critics of Apple’s mobile platform — it just gained the multitasking offered by other phones as well as several new features that make the iPad more of a notebook replacement. You’ll still be locked into Apple’s ecosystem, but that’s a price some are willing to pay for one company’s vision of mobile computing.

Apple today previewed its big push into mobile advertising, including plans to sell and host all ads on a new iAd platform coming with the launch of iPhone OS 4 this summer. Apple will sell and host ads directly, giving developers a 60 percent split of revenue.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off his rationale for a new ad platform and experience at an event for press and developers at Apple HQ by knocking the competition. “For lack of a more elegant way to say it, we think most of this mobile advertising really sucks,” he said. Jobs also took a direct dig at Google, noting that behavior in a mobile experience is more oriented to apps than search, so mobile advertising should center around apps and not search.

Jobs did admit that Apple has little experience in advertising. “Listen, we don’t know much about this advertising stuff. We’re learning,” he said. “We tried to buy this company called AdMob and Google came in and snatched them from us. We bought this other much smaller company called Quattro and they’re teaching us. But we’re babes in the woods.”

iPhone users spend 30 minutes per day using their 4 billion downloads of the 185,000 apps now in Apple App Store, according to Apple’s latest stats. With a potential ad load of one ad every 3 minutes, about the same as a TV show, and now close to 100 million devices in the market, “This is a pretty serious opportunity,” said Jobs.

One major advantage Apple can offer is to connects ads more seamlessly to apps with its soon-to-be-added multitasking feature (available only for iPhone 3GS and the latest generation of iPod Touch in the summer, and the iPad in the fall). Today, when users click on an ad within an app, “You click on a banner ad it yanks you out of an app, throws you in a browser,” said Jobs. “You may never get back to your ad and never to where you left out. So what’s the result? People don’t click on ads.”

By contrast, “Because the iAd is in the OS itself, we have figured out a way to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app with the iAd experience,” said Jobs. iAd holds a user’s place in an app and opens the ad up in an app-like environment that connects to the rest of the services on the iPhone, so users could look directly on a map for nearby stores, watch videos, make a picture their phone’s wallpaper, or buy a promoted app directly. It’s not yet clear whether other mobile advertising companies will be allowed to mimic this user experience.

Jobs noted that developers should be able to parlay their experience building apps to build iAds for ad agencies.

During a presentation on Apple’s Cupertino campus this morning, the company’s CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the next version of the iPhone operating system: iPhone OS 4. Apple will release a preview version to developers today and plans to release the OS to consumers in the summer. Among the new features in the OS are multitasking with the help of a new set of APIs. Developers will get access to over 1,500 new APIs, and users will see over 100 new features.

Jobs also announced that Apple has already sold 450,000 iPads.

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Note: This is a breaking news story. We will update this story throughout the morning as more news becomes available from the iPhone OS 4 event. Just reload this page to see the updates.

iPhone OS 4

In total, Apple has now sold close to 85 million devices that run the iPhone OS.

Developers, who will get access to the new OS today, will be able to access over 1,500 new APIs, including better APIs for in-app SMS, smarter ways to access the accelerometer and access to new users features like 5x digital zoom, home screen wallpapers, and access to Bluetooth keyboards.

iPhone OS 4 will also finally include support for multitasking. Jobs noted that Apple isn’t the first company to bring this feature to the market, but wants “to be the best.” A simple double-click on the home button will bring up a task menu at the bottom of the screen. This, however, is just a way to quickly switch between apps.

No Multitasking for iPhone 3G

Most of these newly announced features will run on the iPhone 3GS and third generation iPod touch, but users with an iPhone 3G or second generation iPod touch will not get access to the new multitasking features. Apple plans to release iPhone OS 4 for the iPad in the fall.

Background Apps

To run services in the background, as Apple’s SVP of iPhone software Scott Forstall noted, apps will have to access a new set of APIs. Music apps like Pandora will be able to stream their music in the background and use the iPod controls in the lock screen to control the playback. Until now, exiting an app like Pandora would stop the music playback. According to Pandora’s developers, making the app background aware only took one day.

VoIP services like Skype will now also be able to run in the background.

Apple will now allow location services to run in the background. This will be a major boon for turn-by-turn direction services like Tom Tom and location-based social networks like Loopt, which Apple specifically mentioned during the event.

In addition, apps will also be able to send local push notifications and apps will be able to complete tasks like photo uploads in the background.

Folders

With iPhone OS 4, Apple is also introducing a new way to organize applications – something that those of us who have installed way too many apps on our phones will appreciate. Now, users will be able to organize apps into folders. To do this, you simply drag and drop apps on top of each other. The OS automatically creates a name for these folders (presumably based on the apps’ categories in the App Store), but you can also edit the name yourself. Folders can also live in the dock. This will come in handy if you want to have all your games or news apps available at a moment’s notice.

Enhanced Mail App

iPhone OS 4 will also bring an enhanced mail app with a unified inbox and the ability to organize emails by thread. In addition, users will finally be able to open attachments with apps.

Game Center

For gamers, Apple is introducing the Game Center, which is basically a social gaming network that will feature automatic matchmaking for multiplayer games, leaderboards and achievements.

iBooks Comes to the iPhone

After Apple introduced iBooks for the iPad, it was only a matter of time before the company would introduce iBooks for the iPhone. Just like the Kindle app, iBooks will sync pages and bookmarks between the iPad and iPhone. iPhone users will also be able to access the iBookstore right from their device.

iPhone in the Enterprise

For enterprise users, Apple is introducing a number of new features, including improved security courtesy of support for SLL VPN. Enterprises will now also be able to distribute apps wirelessly.

iAd

Unsurprisngly, Apple also announced its new iAd mobile advertising platform. According to Jobs, “most of this mobile advertising really sucks.” According to Jobs, the best way to deliver mobile ads in not through search ads but inside mobile apps.

Jobs noted that Apple wants ads in apps to be even more interactive than on the Web. Currently, according to Jobs, people don’t click on ads because it takes them out of the app. Given that iAd is a built-in OS-wide feature, however, Apple thinks that it can deliver a better experience for users. Jobs also took a swipe at Adobe and noted that these interactive ads will be developed in HTML5. Judging from Apple’s demos during the event, these ads can be highly interactive and many of them resembled mini-games more than traditional display ads.

Apple will sell, host and deliver the ads and share 60% of the revenue with developers.

Update on the iPad: 450,000 Sold

At the beginning of his presentation, Jobs also recapped last week’s launch of the iPad. According to Jobs, the company managed to sell 450,000 iPads since the device went on sale on Saturday. iPad users have downloaded over 600,000 books from the iBookstore and 3.5 million iPad apps from the App Store. It’s not clear how many of these books were free books, however.

Jobs also announced that the App Store has now delivered over 4 billion apps to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users, and that there are close to 3,500 iPad apps in the store already.

Thanks to our friends at Gizmodo and gdgt for providing excellent live coverage of the event today.

Discuss

Nokia Chairman, CEO and President Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has the second-toughest job in the mobile industry — that of turning the decades-old, set-in-its-ways, $58-billion-a-year mobile handset maker into a services-driven, Internet-oriented monster that not only catches up to but surpasses new upstart rivals Apple and Google. The good news is that unlike Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein (who has the toughest mobile gig), he doesn’t have to worry about running out of money anytime soon.

“You can’t really call it a mobile industry. Things are quite blurry. The Internet and mobile are converging and the PC and cell phone are merging,” said Kallasvuo when I met him for a brief conversation earlier this week. If sales of the iPhone and Google’s Android-based smartphones are any indication, the mobile industry is indeed overhauling itself for the future — one that revolves around the Internet, and the content and services that come with persistent connectivity to it.

“Today consumers expect more from the device than just hardware. They want hardware along with services such as music and navigation built into the price of the device,” Kallasvuo said. So while in the past Nokia competed with other handset makers on hardware features, now it’s competing on new ways of doing business. “The industry competition now is about ecosystem and business models.”

The Rise of the Mobile Internet

The tragic part, of course, is that Nokia was the first one to see this change coming — long before Apple started working on the iPhone. I’ve followed the Espoo, Finland-based company for a long time, nearly a decade and a half. My first cell phone, in 1995, was from Nokia; it was the device that exposed me to the potential of wireless. It was the phone I used to call my parents in India, so for me, Nokia represented a way to connect with the people I love. What excited me even more back then was Nokia’s vision of phones as a “multimedia computers” that put the Internet in your pocket. The company was talking about disrupting not only the industry it already dominated, but itself.

And then Nokia blew it. Rather than disrupting anything, the company started going down the path of incremental evolution. It sacrificed its boldness at the altar of scale and commoditization. It became the Dell of the handset business. And then, in 2007, the iPhone was launched, and cell phones stopped being just about hardware and instead became all about services, content and developers. The stock prices of the two companies tell the whole story.

When I outlined this — not in as many words, of course — Kallasvuo listened to me patiently and then responded by pointing out that over the past two years, Nokia has been trying to move in this direction, mostly by acquiring companies and by launching new mapping and music-related services. “We have made investments in adding these capabilities,” he said. “Others,” he said, “have not made it clear in their value.” By others he means Nokia’s hardware-focused handset rivals.

“We have been transforming the company from a hardware company to a more value-added services company,” he said. “We have brought in new people with new processes and are doing things in a new way. This change has been extremely complex and time-consuming.”

To that end, Kallasvuo candidly admitted that while the “direction is very clear” for Nokia, the key will be executing on that vision. He’s confident Nokia can do it, pointing, by way of example, to its Ovi services, which it’s been localizing for countries around the world. “From 2008 to 2010 we have made a lot of progress and in 2010 you are going to see the results of that,” he said.

Symbian…Why Why Why?

When I asked him why Nokia still hadn’t introduced a great touchscreen phone, he would only say that the company was working on new products, refusing to get into details. I’ve been pretty tough on Nokia when it comes to this point, as most of its touchphones have been extremely disappointing (at least to me). However, Kallasvuo was willing to talk about Nokia’s reliance on Symbian , a mobile operating system that’s long in the tooth.

“Symbian has a lot of positive telecom-centric legacy which allows it to scale really well,” Kallasvuo said. The new version of the OS, he added, has improvements — said to include better graphics, multitouch, support of multiple home pages and a better music store, amongst other things — that will speak for themselves. I’m not holding my breath, however, mostly because I think the guys at Apple and Android are innovating at Internet speed. Plus the new Symbian isn’t likely to make it to the market until late June.

Kallasvuo also pointed out that Nokia sells an enormous number of feature phones (reasonably priced devices that aren’t as powerful as smartphones), and can bring the Internet to those devices. Hence the company’s recent purchase of Novarra. I think this could end up being Nokia’s big opportunity. With Apple and Google succeeding at the top end of the market, Nokia would do well to shore up its bread-and-butter business and even try and take market share from rivals such as the beleaguered Sony Ericsson.

Location Gives the Internet Relevance

One of the things that gets Kallasvuo excited is location — or more specifically, location-based services. “Location is not an app, instead it adds a whole new dimension (and value) to the Internet,” he said, explaining why his company has made huge investments in location, including its $8 billion purchase of mapping company Navteq. Nokia earlier this year released a new Ovi Maps application that allows it to compete in markets such as India, Brazil and Russia, places where Google and Apple haven’t made inroads just yet.

“Putting location elements into different type of services is a big opportunity which makes the Internet more exciting,” Kallasvuo said. (I’ve written about Nokia’s location-oriented strategy in the past.) Location, along with different types of sensors and augmented reality, will open the mobile world up to different possibilities, he said.

If there was one point Nokia’s big boss wanted to make before we ended our conversation, it was that the Nokia in 2010 is going to be a lot different from the Nokia of the past. The company has its work cut out for it. The good news, if you can call it that, is that its CEO knows what to do. Acceptance is the first step toward recovery. And for me that’s a good start. I look forward to falling in love with Nokia all over again.

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Governments and non-profit organizations could be the next sectors to build touch-enabled applications for the mobile web, according to a Taptu report released today. Unlike specific mobile handset platforms like those of Apple, Google and others, the Internet is agnostic, making it useful for low-budget organizations to engage the masses. Though the web’s agnosticism is somewhat ironic in this case, as religious groups are so far the most dominant users of touch applications — accounting for 72.5 percent of all government and non-profits with mobile, touch-friendly sites in Taptu’s data pool.

And what better platform is there for sharing religious messages or raising charitable contributions than the mobile web? A touch-optimized site for mobiles paired with payment services like Twitpay can result in big bucks with a few taps on modern handsets. Such ease-of-use is what helped raise tens of millions of dollars for Haitian relief efforts this past January through simple text messaging — another money-making mechanism usable with virtually any phone.

So why use the touch-enabled web in lieu of focused applications? Given limited budgets, non-profits can focus development efforts on a single platform — the mobile web — which reaches the widest potential audience. Creating a platform-specific smartphone application requires more time and money than these groups may have. Even without a custom iPhone or Android program, well-designed mobile sites still work well on those iPhones and Android handsets, not to mention most touchscreen phones. In fact, this sector might be the perfect example of one benefiting more from the web than from custom applications —  a rare feat in today’s app economy. Using the mobile web as the lowest common denominator could be the answer to a non-profit’s prayers.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user flickr user Mindful_One

Wade Roush wrote:

As far as anyone knows, it’s a first in movie history: a location-based iPhone application has been accepted as an entry at a major film festival. Walking Cinema: Murder on Beacon Hill, an app built around a 43-minute series of interactive videos, will appear on the big screen at the AMC Loews Boston Common theater on Sunday, April 18, as part of the Boston International Film Festival (BIFF).

The app, it turns out, has local roots. It was produced by Boston-based Untravel Media, whose founder Michael Epstein calls it “a page-turner mystery powered by your feet.” The app tells the story of George Parkman, a wealthy Bostonian who disappeared in November 1849 and whose dismembered body was eventually discovered under a dissecting vault at Harvard Medical College. Harvard instructor John Webster, who owed Parkman money, was convicted of the murder after a sensational trial and publicly hanged.

Normally, viewers experience the story of the murder as they travel a mapped route around Boston’s Beacon Hill, watching sections from the video at eight different stops. At the film festival, though, audiences will stay firmly in their seats, watching all 33 parts of the video in continuous order. “We were just blown away at how watchable the story is in a theatrical setting,” BIFF director Patrick Jerome said in a statement. “It’s quick-paced, full of juicy details, and, to our knowledge, it’s the first location-based application to screen at a film festival.”

Epstein says the film’s acceptance at BIFF is a sign that the filmmaking community is gradually waking up to the possibilities of transmedia storytelling—in particular, storytelling that immerses viewers in a thoughtful way in real geography.

“Everything in media now is naturally prone to become transmedia, as content is shared across networks and people view it on different kinds of screens,” he says. “But what is important is that you bake the transmedia thinking into the project, so that there is stuff on the Web that you don’t get on the broadcast, and stuff on mobile that you can’t get on either. With historical subjects, the geography can almost become a character.”

Though Walking Cinema is the only Untravel project that’s been developed into a self-contained mobile app, it’s one of about a dozen location-driven mobile tours developed by Untravel. Other tours, which are distributed as video podcasts, focused on Boston’s West End, the Big Dig, Harvard Square, the MIT Stata Center, and the Salem witch trials.

The Beacon Hill app includes video material from Murder at Harvard, a PBS documentary created by Arlington, MA-based director and producer Eric Stange. Epstein says part of the challenge of the project—which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Office of Digital Humanities—was to adapt Stange’s made-for-television film into a non-linear walking tour without losing the storyline and without sacrificing video and sound quality. The iPhone was the perfect vehicle for the project, he says.

“For a few years now we’ve been talking about doing more than your typical audio guides and walking tours,” Epstein says. “With the iPhone, apps can be fairly rich, so filmmakers know their stories won’t be reduced to little clips, but that the actual story can be expanded and become more engaging.”

Epstein thinks such efforts will win greater recognition over time at film community events like BIFF. “Mobile content is becoming ever more sophisticated,” he says. “The judges on the boards of the film festivals know that filmmakers are trying to figure out what we can do to tap mobile channels, and I think that any mobile project involving the iPhone or iPad that is watchable, they are interested in putting up.”

UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

Google Earth for the Android phone is now available on the Verizon DROID, according to Peter Birch, writing on the Google LatLongBlog.

Google Earth for Android launched in early March, but the specific needs of adapting it for Verizon’s phone and service took an extra month.

According to Birch, Google Earth for Android is compatible with most Android devices running 2.1. More Android phones will accommodate Google Earth as they adopt Android 2.1 or higher.

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“Google Earth requires hardware floating-point acceleration, so it will run on devices such as DROID and Nexus One, but not on devices such as myTouch 3G and DROID ERIS.”

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German navigation company Skobbler is bringing their turn-by-turn, OSM iPhone streetmap application to the United States. Skobbler describes itself as “an Internet community with a free mobile phone navigation system.”

Skobbler has been testing the application in several states in the last few weeks and has reportedly found the OpenStreetMap data quite good. OSM is a collaborative, crowdsourced project to map the world from the ground up, using volunteers and an emphasis on open-source presentation and rendering.

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Skobbler is comparable in its leverage of community and focus on open source to the more established Waze.

Skobbler had jettisoned NAVTEQ data and debuted with OSM in Germany in March. After a rocky start it has found its way into the top ten downloads in the German iTunes store.

“Skobbler is using consumer feedbacks (reporting is integrated into the application) and the GPS tracks generated by users to improve the map data in co-operation with OSM volunteers,” according to GPS Business News‘s Ludovic Privat.

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